The Annual AOC International Symposium and Convention is the leading event for electronic warfare, electromagnetic spectrum operations, cyber-electromagnetic activities, and information operations experts from around the world. This event brings together nearly 2,000 professionals from 25 countries spanning industry, military, and government sectors to gather for educational sessions, networking, and of course, exposure to a show floor brimming with cutting edge technologies and services.

Look forward to hearing from EW experts in industry, military, government and academia. Check out our speaker spotlight today!

Register for Professional Development Courses

Check out the professional development courses we'll be offering during the convention! These include:

Space EW with Dave Adamy:We will cover spherical trigonometry, orbit mechanics and radio propagation (on the Earth and in space). These subjects will be handled gently, without any mind numbing math – just enough to support the second day’s material. We will then apply these disciplines to practical space EW problems dealing with intercept and jamming of hostile radar and communication systems.

Electronic Countermeasures - Theory and Design: The goal of this course is to educate participants in the the field of Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) and Electronic Attacks (EA). This includes the complete countermeasures development cycle from analysing threat systems, to developing jammer techniques, and finally confirming their effectiveness. EA in communications, radar, and infrared systems will be explored in detail.

Being prepared for military conflict or defending against terrorist attack relies primarily on signals intelligence or ‘SIGINT’. Today, SIGINT provides the foundation for all intelligence assessment. This webinar will focus on the technical collection of intelligence from the electromagnetic spectrum under the headings of communications intelligence (‘COMINT’) and electronic intelligence (‘ELINT’). An overview will be provided to SIGINT collection methods used on the ground, in the air, in maritime and overhead (satellite). Additionally, we will look at the technologies involved, particularly at receiver technology and signals processing. A brief look at Russian and Chinese capability will demonstrate that SIGINT is now a world-wide capability. The webinar will conclude with a introduction to how SIGINT in the EM spectrum is now at the forefront of combating terrorism.

On Thursday 12 July, AOC President-Elect, Muddy Watters, International Region 2 Director, Jeff Walsh and Director Global Conferences, John Clifford OBE, joined members of the Republic of Korea Roost, led by Dr Kwang ILL Lee at an International EW Workshop co-organised by the ROK Air Force, ROK Roost and Agency for Defence Development in Seoul. The AOC contributed the international speakers to the line-up for the 1-day event, which was an extraordinary event with around 600 delegates and 4 sponsors.

The AOC will recognize the premier leaders in EW, IO and EMS Operations fields throughout our 54th Annual Symposium and Convention. Please join us in celebrating these award winners for their exemplary service to our community. The Gold Medal Award is the highest award given by the AOC for outstanding advances and contributions in all fields of EW and IO. The Gold Medal Award will be presented during the Opening Session on Tuesday, November 27th. The Hal Gershanoff Silver Medal Award is presented to an AOC member to recognize outstanding service in furthering the goals of the Association or its Chapter Organization(s). It is the highest award given to a member for service to the AOC. The Hal Gershanoff Silver Medal, the Colonel Anton D. Brees Lifetime Service Awards, and the Joseph W. Kearney Award will be presented at the Annual Banquet on Wednesday, November 28th. All other Individual awards will be presented at separate venues.

The Directed Energy Professional Society (DEPS) is hosting its annual Directed Energy (DE) Systems Symposium. In 2018, DEPS is partnering with the AOC to reach the broader Electronic Warfare (EW) and Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) communities.

CALL FOR PAPERS

This continuing partnership provides an opportunity for the AOC to contribute technical briefings on traditional electronic attack (EA) capabilities and gaps, and how EA and Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) together are critical to achieving military advantage in the EMS. Contributions are solicited for presentation with a primary interest in topics that support a system level view of DEW or traditional EA capabilities. AOC is overseeing technical briefings pertaining to the six (6) topics of interest below. If you are interested in presenting at the Directed Energy Systems Symposium, please contact Ken Miller, AOC Director of Advocacy and Outreach, at kmiller@crows.org.

All Unclassified, classified and Limited Distribution presentations must be received by September 7; papers must be received by September 14.

Find out more about paper topics and guidelines at crows.org, and be sure to view the submission instructions here.

Whether in heavy industry or on the battlefield, there is an urgent need to deliver Assured Position, Navigation and Timing (A-PNT) in denied or degraded environments. For military platforms, compromised GPS and PNT can determine a mission’s success or failure. Talk to us now about cost-effective COTS-based approaches for deploying A-PNT. We are developing rugged, open architecture solutions.

This course will cover the unified presentation of the fundamental design principles of LPI radar. This includes a thorough treatment of the numerous types of wideband modulations that can be used to reduce the probability of a non-cooperative intercept receiver’s ability to intercept and extract the waveform modulation parameters (which may easily lead to an effective jammer response). We will also cover the intercept receiver time-frequency and bi-frequency signal processing techniques that can extract the wideband waveform parameters. Autonomous classification and parameter extraction algorithms are also an objective such that a real-time jammer response can be developed – just what we did not want to happen!

The Association of Old Crows is pleased to announce its new Career Center - the premier resource to connect career opportunities with highly qualified EW, EMSO, CEMA, SIGINT, ELINT, & IO talent. You can access the AOC Career Center at https://careers.crows.org.

Election season is almost upon the AOC. The future of this organization lies in the capable hands of our members, and your participation is critical. Please exercise your right to vote for your AOC Board of Directors representatives. You can familiarize yourself with the candidates with the election guide below. This information describes the candidates’ backgrounds, leadership styles, and contributions to the AOC.

In order to vote, your AOC membership must be in good standing no later than August 20. Visit the elections page to learn more!

RFSoC technology has revolutionized the FPGA chip landscape by including on-chip A/D and D/A functionality and ARM processors in addition to the already expansive FPGA and processing resources available for custom applications. This type of RFSoC FPGA solution delivers a multichannel data conversion and processing solution all on a single chip. RFSoC brings a powerful and unique solution for addressing some of the most demanding requirements of high-bandwidth and high-channel-count systems.

This webinar provides a look at how RFSoC compares to the current trends in A/D and D/A converters and the strategies for getting the most performance out of this new family of FPGAs. On-chip resources will be explored in detail and board and system design considerations will be discussed including power, IP optimization, standard and custom module sizes for development and deployment in addition to the support circuitry needed for optical interfaces and connections, memory, clocking and high-signal integrity for RF inputs and outputs. Engineers involved with SIGINT, communications, DRFM, countermeasures, triggered waveform and radar chirp generation, trigged radar range gate engineer, wideband real-time transient capture, and multi-mode, high-speed data acquisition can benefit from this webinar.

The purpose of the symposium is to bring together government, military, industry, academia, small business and other stakeholders for discussions on the operational challenges facing the practitioners of these IRCs, and to explore possible technological and tactics/procedural solutions. To stimulate wider interest and inquiry into these issues, the symposium and related activities and events will be open to registration by government, industry and academia representatives without regard to their AOC membership status (both AOC Members and non-members may register) except that access of foreign and any other persons may be restricted as necessary in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

The symposium agenda will focus on the role of information operations in maintaining the conditions for continued peace and stability within the region and will feature presentations and panels from senior U.S. Department of Defense leaders.

The theme for this year’s CEMA conference is: “CEMA as a Critical Enabler to Modernization Priorities". We will showcase the important role CEMA technologies and capabilities can play in helping achieve the CSA’s top 6 priority areas: Long Range precision Fire, Next Generation Combat vehicle, Future Vertical Lift, Network/C3I modernization, Advanced Missile Defense, and Soldier Lethality. Conference presentations may be Classified, TS/SCI US Only or REL FVEY, or Secret Releasable FVEY.

Keynote and High Ranking Speakers Announced!

Major General Kirk F. Vollmecke, Program Executive Officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S)Lieutenant General Stephen G. Fogarty, Commanding General, U.S. Army Cyber CommandMajor General John B. Morrison, Jr., Commanding General, U.S. Army Cyber Center of ExcellenceBrigadier General Jennifer G. Buckner, Director of Cyber G-3/5/7, U.S. Army

The goal of this conference is to provide an overview on the latest trends regarding adversary threat system electronic protection features as well as a forum for discussing electronic attack test, evaluation, and analysis activities. Attendance at this conference is appropriate for those involved in the design, development, testing, evaluation and employment of electronic warfare systems, techniques and tactics for protection of U.S. and allied aircraft.

Sponsorship Opportunities Available! Click here to for information about becoming a sponsor!

CALL FOR PAPERS

The AOC Modern SAM 2019 conference committee is soliciting original papers from the United States Government, Academia, Industry, Operators, and Subject Matter Experts to discuss current and emerging trends in electro-optical (EO), infrared (IR), and radio-frequency (RF) surface-to-air missile system electronic warfare. While Secret US Only presentations are required, the committee will accept presentations that are FVEY topic related, NO/FORN and classified up to TS/SCI US Only. Note however, no foreign nationals may participate in the conference.

The theme for this year’s conference is “Modern SAMs: Electronic Warfare Analysis, Test, and Evaluation."

Abstracts for presentations are required in unclassified textual format. Please forward abstracts to Ms. Christine Armstrong at armstrong@crows.org. The deadline to submit is November 9, 2018.

This course provides an introduction to Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) radar systems, their characteristics and performance. This knowledge is then adapted to Electronic Warfare (EW) systems, and how they can be designed to detect and defeat LPI radars. In addition to lectures, student exercises are used to reinforce and demonstrate concepts. To find out more about the planned agenda and workshop instructor, or to reserve your spot, click here!

On July 21st, the Granite State Roost (GSR) enjoyed a sunset cruise on Lake Winnipesaukee aboard the Mt. Washington. Forty-one attendees had the pleasure of dining and dancing the night away; a spectacular sunset set the tone for the evening. Dinner was served buffet style – prime rib, haddock scampi, pasta salad, sweet potato mash, roasted vegetables and a garden salad. Dessert consisted of cookies, chocolate cake, raspberry layered cake and more. Two bands, one on each level of the ship, entertained the guests with a variety of music.

My name is Kim Lydon and I am undertaking research on Cold War wall art/graffiti at former RAF Upper Heyford as part of my MSc dissertation at the University of York. A colleague (Robyn Pender) passed on your contact details and I hope that you do not mind me making contact. My survey closes at the end of next month (to date, I have had an excellent response from former Upper Heyford USAF personnel via a memorial website).To this end, it would be great if you could include an outline of my research (plus images) and my e-mail contact through the good offices of the AOC.

Standing at the forefront of game-changing innovations in undersea warfare, Navy Cmdr. Scott Smith has only one small request. Don’t call the Navy’s fleet of unmanned undersea vehicles “drones.” “It has a negative connotation,” Smith said. “We think of drone strikes as taking out Taliban, and we’re nowhere near that.” Not yet, anyway. But the Pentagon is trying quickly to get there. (Navy Times)

The Air Force’s ambitious new ISR strategy calls for a sensing grid that fuses together data from legacy platforms like the RQ-4 Global Hawk, emerging technologies like swarming drones, other services' platforms and publicly available information. And deciphering all of that data will be artificial intelligence.Such a system may sound like something out of a sci-fi book, but the service believes it could be in service by 2028. (C4ISR Net)

The Army’s Rapid Equipping Force will equip United States Army Forces Command with Electronic Warfare Tactical Vehicles this Fall as part of ongoing efforts to advance Army capabilities in the area of electronic warfare. The EWTVs were developed in response to an operational requirement to sense and jam enemy communications and networks. (DVIDS)

Japan and the United Kingdom (UK) may collaborate in some capacity on the latter’s Tempest Future Fighter Aircraft project, which aims to field a sixth-generation stealth fighter for the Royal Air Force (RAF) by 2035. A full-sized mockup of the Tempest fighter jet was first publicly revealed at the 2018 Farnborough International Airshow in mid-July. (The Diplomat)

The Marine Corps has appointed Brig. Gen. (Sel.) Lorna Mahlock as its chief information officer and director of command, control, communications and computers for the service. Mahlock replaces acting CIO and C4 deputy director Kenneth Bible, who held the CIO and C4 deputy director roles on an acting basis after Brig. Gen. Dennis Crall stepped down earlier this year. (C4ISR Net)